Hepcats Took My Baby

(Legend of Assquatch)
by Scott Hefflon

(This is not the actual cover.) Just outside of Harvard Square exists a low-key club called The Kirkland Cafe (a.k.a. Club Bohemia). Hepcats Took My Baby has it’s origins in this cozy club, and it shows. Unlike many an album (either on an überlabel, or trying to sound as if it is),Hepcats… has the sound of a neighborhood club. A dry, wood-floor kinda sound, light on the effects, just good, clean live-oriented fun. While, like any pot-luck night of local-band cruising (Supporting Your Local Scene with title caps just bursting with your good intentions), some of the bands suck. But someone out there likes ’em, even if it’s only the booking agent and/or guy who put the comp together (well, and hopefully the band themselves). Opening with “Ho’ Down at the Kirkland Cafe,” basically Dinga Gunn bangin’ away at the out-of-tune piano I could never figure out why was there, then quickly cruising through tracks by Pretty Flowers, The Medveds (two songs), Pistola, January, Lux 66, Soothing Sounds for Baby, Munky (three songs), Elixer, Webber Keeth, I Ginkgo, Penis Fly Trap, Kermit’s Finger, The Stalkers, The Barrow Pigs, Corn Lords, and $50 (bucks), Hepcats… checks in with a total of 20 songs, over an hour of diverse Boston music, ranging from pop to punk to rock, and ever mixture in between. My tastes tend toward the goofy punk of The Medveds’ “Cindy is a Man” and the strong female vocal-fronted, “indie”-rock backed Lux 66’s “Rockstar,” but others are certainly welcome to like whatever they like. Some tracks are silly, some enjoyable, some seem to try too hard to be something they’re expect to be but aren’t, and some bands just ought to sell their instruments and enroll in night classes as soon as possible. But isn’t that the way these things always go?
(1127 Comm Ave #2, Allston, MA 02134)